Best online games highly addictive

Thursday

Jan 11, 2007 at 6:55 AMJan 11, 2007 at 9:19 AM

By DOUG ELFMAN For The Courier

Friends have been pestering me to play "Left Behind: Eternal Forces," the Christian outing where End Days come and you portray Jesus or a more random guy spreading truth. My friends want me to play as the anti-Christ. Theyíre whimsical friends.

But itís a PC game, and apparently my 2003 PC is too outdated to cope with the technical specifications of the apocalypse. Just loading "Left Behind" or any other PC game has become as simple as tying a knot with Wonder Womanís eyeballs.

I especially wanted to play "Left Behind" online to see which gamers around the world chose to portray the anti-Christ, who is not allowed to win. After many hours of attempts, I gave up, because the game notified me my PC couldnít find its servers. Sigh.

I take solace playing other fun online games. Here are my truths on my favorite, newest online games, plus a few titles from the past few years, for Xbox 360 and PS3. Each can be played alone, but these star ratings are based on online value only:

"Call of Duty 3" offers immense online fun. You use very responsive guns to take out Nazis or Americans (depending on which army you end up on) in spectacularly detailed scenes from World War II.

Itís available for Xbox 360 and PS3. Itís rated "T" for blood, language and violence.

"Tom Clancyís Rainbow Six: Las Vegas" is incredibly sleek and very, very difficult. The guns are finely tuned to kill you or someone else pretty quickly. Thatís great. But the learning curve to winning in "Vegas" is formidable. If youíre a newbie, you will die, and die, and die some more.

"Resistance: Fall of Man" is overrated, even though itís also quite good. Guns are accurate and quick. Sci-fi battlefields are fine. Everything is just fine, not mind-blowing. Itís available for PS3. Itís rated "M" for blood, gore, intense violence and strong language.

"Fight Night Round 3" is exactly as fun online as it is playing alone. The difference is online gamers can be much less capable than the computerís stand-in fighters. Donít be surprised if you beat a gamer to a pulp, then see him throw in the towel. Thatís been some of my experience.

"Battlefield 2: Modern Combat" is so awesome, it makes "Call of Duty 3" seem like a standby date. Its modern warfare is so shockingly addictive, itís still selling in used-game stores for a hefty $40. It is in my list of top five games ever made.

Itís available for Xbox 360. Itís rated "T" for language and violence.

A final thought: I dug through my shelves and re-tested two old Xbox 360 games online to see if theyíre still relevant. Re-connecting "Halo 2" made me think itís overrated. People talk about it with reverence, because it is crazily popular. And it is good.

Another oldie, "Perfect Dark Zero" (rated "M" for blood, language, violence) was never super popular, yet I could still find a few players online to shoot at. Itís not very fun. But its perseverance proves how potent Xbox Live is. It can even keep an average game alive.

Doug Elfman is an award-winning columnist who also is the TV critic at the Chicago Sun-Times. He blogs at DougElfman.com.

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